Skip James was one of the finest and most refined masters of the Delta blues tradition. He plays the guitar with grace and nuance, and his rather rustic, eccentric piano style makes up with charm for whatever it may lack in technical virtuosity.
Skip James is one of the most important figures in The Blues, whose shadow still looms large.
The performances on 'Hard Time Killin' Floor' are nothing less than
superb. If you haven't heard Skip
James before, hearing this CD you will get the
feeling that you've heard these songs somewhere before, probably because you have; Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and countless Rock acts have covered, drawn inspiration
from, or just plain "borrowed" parts of the songs that are found here.
To my ears, this is the definitive collection of Skip James'
early recordings. Yazoo Records has always had the best sound on old Blues 78s, mostly because of
the label's judicious use of noise reduction (in the old days, that
meant no noise reduction). Now they've apparently used the latest tools
to remove most of the intermittent noise, while leaving the music and
some high-end background noise intact. Whatever process was used, sound
engineer Richard Nevins has created the best sounding versions of these
songs that I've ever heard. [and I've heard quite a few - Ed.] On the old Yazoo compilation, songs like
"Special Rider Blues" and "Illinois Blues" were almost completely buried
in noise. Somehow, Richard Nevins has resurrected them. In particular, the
guitar parts are much clearer. There is still quite a bit of noise and
distortion, as these records are notoriously rare and in poor condition, but this is probably the best they'll ever sound. This CD has all the
Skip James 1930 Paramount recordings that are known to exist. It also
includes four cuts by Son House from the same year. These recordings are
also extremely rare in and in very poor condition. Once again, Richard Nevins
has made them sound better than ever. As for the music, it is some of
the most evocative music ever recorded in the Blues genre.
For the freeload, tell us about some of your favorite songs that were "borrowed" from other songs.
"If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day" (along with "Cross Road Blues" & half of Robert Johnson's catalog) is a dead lift of "Rolling and Tumbling." I'd say the three components to a successful blues song are (1) begin with the line "woke up this morning," (2) include a numbered highway (e.g., Highway 61, Highway 51, Highway 49, County Road 308) with bonus points for putting the number first (e.g., 51 Highway), and (3) use the chord progress of "Rolling and Tumbling."
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you've posted this (sorry I couldn't resist). Favourite borrowed song is the Stones first (ahem) self written single "The last time" taken from the Staple Singers "This may be the last time"
ReplyDeleteOrange Juice ripping off Buzzcock's guitar solo from Boredom cracks me up everytime I hear it. I wonder if they had to come to an out of court settlement over that?
ReplyDeleteIrma Thomas had one of her first hits with the Allen Toussaint song, "Ruler Of My Heart." Same exact song, with slightly modified lyrics, a few years later becomes a hit for Otis Redding, under the name, "Pain in My Heart."
ReplyDeleteI'd Rather Go Blind (Etta James) > Tennessee Whiskey (Chris Stapleton). I don't mind listening to the new one 'cuz I'm hearing the old one.
ReplyDeleteSteely Dan loved to borrow from jazz guys. They borrowed the opening of "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" from Horace Silver's jazz classic "Song for My Father". The song "Gaucho" was borrowed from Keith Jarrett's "Long As You Know You’re Living Yours". Becker and Fagen ended up giving Keith the co-writing credit.
ReplyDeleteI was a jazzhead back when that song first came out (1974?!?), and no one in my circle back then believed me, or really knew who Horace Silver was.
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ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/archive/4nL9BzjYsk
Thank you Babs. There's the story about Alan Price who was the keyboard player for The Animals getting credit for the band's arrangement of House Of The Rising Sun because it was more convenient for the publisher and the others didn't realize the problem until it was too late. My favorite example of borrowing is the version of Amazing Grace by The Blind Boys Of Alabama which is set to the tune of.......that "Alan Price" arrangement of Rising Sun.
ReplyDeleteMy poor memory glands are compromised, but didn't someone rip off Buzzcocks "Ever Fallen In Love"??
ReplyDeleteI searched and searched, and found my original FYC "The Raw & The Cooked", no composer listed for this track. Apparently all subsequent releases credited Pete Shelley, as it should be. It's like being a detective!!
DeleteRadiohead's 'Creep' owes quite the debt to Hollies' 'The Air That I Breathe'.
ReplyDeleteThis'll be obscure for those not into the SoCal punk scene 40 years ago, but Social Distortion's '1945' and the Adolescents' 'Amoeba' are about the same song, minus the words.
C in California
Here's another SoCal punk one: when Greg Hetson left Red Cross to form the Circle Jerks, he took the chord progression from "Cover Band" to write "Live Fast Die Young".
DeleteThe Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA" was an obvious lift of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen," and to my ears the Pendleton-clad Socal boys came off decidedly second best and callow.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Skip James, Babs. His falsetto had a certain haunting quality that Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson of Canned Heat replicated on numbers like "Going Up the Country."